$460,000 in quarters, man steals $460,000 in quarters: Man steals parking meter quarters in New Jersey and gets a fortune over 2 years.

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$460,000 in quarters is what a New Jersey man netted over the course of two years helping himself to the parking meter collections. Thomas Rica, 43, was a public works inspector, who had unlimited access to the quarters collected from the city’s parking meters, according to MSN Money on March 20.

Slowly, but surly, Rica would line his pockets with quarters, bringing a bunch home every few days to the tune of almost a half of a million dollars when it ended. This scheme ended because he was caught red handed taking $500 from a locked room at Ridgewood Village Hall, where they stored the collected parking meter quarters.

Rica used a master key to gain access and he avoided suspicion by depositing the coins in machines at different bank branches throughout this caper. When all was said and done, Rica had transported 1.8 million quarters home in his pockets. That had to be a whole lot of jingling going on!

Rica’s attorney excused this crime saying he had a family to raise and those quarters offered temptation. Basically Rica is set free and he is given five years to pay back his big take after pleading guilty to this crime. He got no jail time for this slow and lingering crime.

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Roz Zurko is a freelance writer originally from Milford, Conn. Today she writes from her home at the foot of the Berkshires in Massachusetts. Her articles have appeared in magazines, newspapers and online. She has been a guest author on BBC radio and her online articles are read by more than a million people each month.